ABSTRACT
Protection of seaborne trade, refugee flows and state-on-state confrontation extending into the maritime arena, generate demand for operations beyond the Nordic and Baltic Sea region. In some policy-making circles, navies are often seen as the odd-man-out in defence and security, and as something less than essential for national survival, security and prosperity over the longer term. The role of navies changed with the end of the Cold War, mainly in two ways. First, the size of navies shrunk substantially since there was no perceived need for their size and structure. Second, navies redirected much of their operational focus from preparation for high-end naval warfare in a Cold-War setting towards constabulary operations, counter-piracy operations and naval diplomacy. In the naval and maritime realm, scenarios can be used as tools as a basis for a discussion of future naval and maritime force structures and indicate future ship and unit design.
